After months of trying to strike a deal on alimony reform — an issue that touches on the emotional topic of financial independence after divorce — lawmakers have passed a compromise bill that now waits for Governor Christie’s signature or veto.

The bill, passed this week, would eliminate the idea of “permanent alimony” and forbid extending payments in excess of the number of years a marriage lasted, in most cases. For instance, if a marriage ended after five years, the payments could continue only for another five years.

In addition, the measure before Christie would make the age of retirement — a point in life when alimony can often be reduced — more definitive. Currently, people have the sometimes difficult task of proving they are retired and not simply trying to get out of paying alimony. By specifying a specific age, the bill would make it easier for payers to claim they are retired.

Still, the bill does not substantially affect current divorces and doesn’t set clear, predictable guidelines for judges to follow when awarding alimony — measures that advocates fought hard for and that were part of a reform package in Massachusetts that passed there in 2011.

Alimony reform frequently comes up at Christie’s town-hall-style events and has brought dozens of advocates to the State House. Those who spoke at committee hearings provided personal and emotional testimony about how alimony and its long-term obligation affected them by either giving them security or destroying them financially.

In December, reformers and lobbyists interested in moderate changes were far apart on the issue. A frenzy of negotiations in late June, with the end-of-month budget deadline acting as a way to impose a timeline on negotiations, resulted in both sides agreeing to compromise.

“The legislators kind of put a cage around us and said you are going to fight inside this cage and we aren’t coming out until the fight is finished,” said Tom Leustek, president of New Jersey Alimony Reform.

Reform efforts have been driven by personal stories — statistics on the system’s problems are hard to find. On the website for New Jersey Alimony Reform, a group advocating for major changes, there is a whole section of entries called “horror stories.” They detail stories, without names and the ability to verify every account, of ex-spouses using alimony as welfare, bankruptcy because of alimony, fake domestic violence claims as a negotiating device and a general inability to ever move on.

Alimony’s point is to protect someone who sacrificed earnings potential for his or her family from being financially devastated after a divorce. The National Organization for Women points out that women are usually the ones who find themselves in this situation. The classic story, which reform advocates say is mostly outdated, is that of a wife who didn’t pursue her own career in order to focus on her family, only to be left with nothing by a husband who wanted out. In such a situation, alimony provides the wife with money owed to her because of the work she put into the marriage.

In March 2013, when reforms were first being introduced, the New Jersey chapter of NOW was for the current laws.

“This has to be discussed in the context of women in society,” said Deb Huber, president of the New Jersey chapter of NOW. The bill on Christie’s desk, she said, presented a compromise from the previous “draconian” versions of the bill

“We can live with this,” she said.

‘Look at both sides’

The state bar association has opposed some of the reforms proposed by Leustek. It didn’t want the bill to be retroactive in any way and wanted to make sure that judges still had discretion when awarding alimony.

“We need to make sure everyone reaps the benefits of their bargain,” said Jeralyn L. Lawrence, head of the Family Law Section of the bar association. “It’s a dissolution of a partnership; we have to look at both sides.”

Lawrence said some advocates for reform had compelling and unfortunate stories, but he said that “with stories, they always have two sides.”

“We can’t craft legislation only looking at one side.”

Beyond the major provisions of the bill, there are other changes — it would be easier for alimony to be forfeited or suspended if the ex-spouse began living with a new partner, for example.

“We think laws should, at the very least, at a very minimum, encourage an alimony recipient to get on with their lives” Leustek said, adding that there were many cases of people using alimony as a kind of welfare check that removed their incentive to ever find work.

Leustek wanted something closer to the reforms put in place in Massachusetts, which outlined strict guidelines for judges to determine the length of alimony payments and allowed people to modify their agreements — major aspects not in the New Jersey bill.

“It’s probably the largest social policy change the state has had in decades,” said Steve Hitner, president and co-founder of Massachusetts Alimony Reform. Hitner came down to New Jersey to testify on the law and was disappointed the bar association didn’t support broader reforms. Both Hitner and Leustek want the current bill to be a first step.

Some believe Christie should veto the bill, including Stuart Meissner, a lawyer and unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate in New Jersey who ran on reforming alimony. He thinks the bill “is completely inadequate, and I think perpetuates a fraud on the general public that makes it appear that there is reform taking place when there isn’t.”

Meissner said that if the current measure is signed, “in the next two decades alimony reform is dead.”

Not everyone is happy, Leustek agreed, adding that while he had received support for the compromise, some of his members “are going absolutely ballistic.”

“They feel as if I sold them out,” Leustek said. “It was a very difficult compromise.”